I'm so sick of typing spider hyphen man.

Here's a sampling of things I hope to sell ... most of the stuff is from the mid 80s to the 90s and trails off after that. I know selling it all would be an uphill battle.

I don't know how unique that list is, but the stuff I'm keeping for now is ..

Does any of that sound close to your interests? Contact me below!

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What's on eBay?

Nothing on eBay yet .. Any requests?

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Type something, hit return, get comics!

Want to hear what I'm about to to put on eBay?

Name:
Email:
About:

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A few useful links (soon)

• Comic Book Realm
  This site is great, it's got an easy to enter inventory and an existing user base where you can find or sell comics.
• Me @ CBR
  Dig around for my inventory.

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What I wish I knew then ...

If you want some comic advice from a dinosaur that survived the 80s publishers, made money at cons, and ended up with too many boxes ...

• Read them for the stories. Sure, sell/trade some. If you read them you already got the money out of them - anything else is a bonus.
• Want to make a small fortune in comics? Invest a large fortune.
• If you really want to see your boxes go up in price, get some back issues - ones from the early 80s or before. The later comics are harder to sell and suffer too many whims of pop culture.
• Comic book companies started out doing what they loved to make money. Collectors came in and started making money selling the old stuff. Collectors make this all possible. If you couldn't find back or old issues it wouldn't be worth doing. The business people at the comic companies learned the phrase "leaving money on the table", and then started with trade paper backs, special issues and variant covers.
• The print run doesn't establish the price - the popularity does. Supply and demand. Some comics never get the demand high enough to get attention. Want some title to go up in value - talk it up to people and get the demand up.
• The newstand editions made the industry. That jump started the direct editions. Newsstand editions can be returned for money so it's a safe bet for the owners. Direct stores can't return their books, but they get a bigger discount (this is how some cool stores sell below cover price).
• Skip the digital comics. Get off your computer, find some friends with similar interests (but not all) and read and trade/sell with them. You can pick up some older comics for cheap at cons.
• Go to conventions. You don't have to dress up, just go. You could make some friends, get some better advice, discover new things, and meet the writers and artists behind the comics.
• Skip Westfield and other online places, hit the comic book store on new comic book day. Not just any day - it has to be new comic day.
• Poke around with more than the closest comic store. Some are better than others.
• Use short boxes. The long ones are a pain. Your back and knees will thank you later.
• BCW supplies, get your friends together and put a big order in (for free shipping). $8 for a short box? WTF? Online will get you $4.
• Owning a comic store is about a whole lot more than loving comics.
• Learn the ins and outs of the USPS before you go making up shipping prices.
• Don't put the boxes together until you need them. Sure it's cool to have tons of empties around, but they'll get in the way.

Have any advice for me ?

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It didn't really start with Daredevil #197.

I read comics before that, I think it was the standard ones about cartoons and for some reason on a trip to Alaska my cousin's mom tossed us in a room and kept buying us Richie Rich comics.

So, after I was officially a comic collector, my aunt sent a package full of Richie Rich. I didn't know what to do with them, I bagged them and stuck them in the end of a box. What else was I going to do?

Every time I had too much money in my pocket I ended up at the comic store. It was at the mall at first, but Lone Star made enough money off me (and my friends) that they set up shop in some strip mall. On the way home from Lone Star one day we spotted a lower rent strip mall and one of the store's had a sign that said Dave's Comics. He offered us 15% off cover price. Hooked again.

Then I discovered price guides. (For you youngers, this is when some of them came out monthly - before the web made it instant.) I apparently knew what I was doing - the comics I was buying were worth something. Hrm. What to do about that?

I started buying double issues of comics I knew were going to increase in value. Sure, laugh if you want - but my friends and I started getting tables at the monthly cons (again, this was before eBay, and mostly before CosPlay). We turned enough of a profit to let it go to our heads. For some comics I bought more than double copies. I got lucky some times - I bought TMNT #3 when it was magazine sized. However, I liked it too much to sell it at a con. Dave even liked us so much that he gave us books to sell at the cons, and we'd get a 30% commission for selling them (or, as it turned out sometimes a 30% discount).

I had fleeting thoughts about owning my own comic store one day, but college crushed that. I occasionally worked 40 hours a week for minimum wage in high school and spent most of the money on comics. Now, in college, I worked about 20 hours a week and barely paid the rent and occasionally got food. Yes, I did hit a few conventions while I was in college - but I was selling stuff.

After college, things got better. Adult jobs pay so much better! I was busy though. I ended up discovering Westfield, and that was dangerous. They were one of the original mail order companies for comics. They listed *everything* that was available - and three months in advance.

Eventually I got really busy with work, and even developed other hobbies. One of the hobbies was searching through the used cd stores and finding things they didn't know were rare - and selling them on eBay. Yeah, it's a trend. Comics started to fall in importance - I still liked them, but my taste was changing. Layoffs in the 2000s really killed the habit though. The regular habit at least. I let my Westfield subscriptions sputter out. I always had thoughts about picking the habit back up or maybe selling some, but I'd picked up other habits (like paying bills) and selling them was pretty daunting.

I've had an awesome time along the way, read fun stories, made some friends, met some famous people, filled up closets easily, and tried to get girlfriends hooked occasionally. Married the one that did, and she probably knows more about Gaiman than I do. I still read comics too, occasionally buy them, just not like I used to. I got a hand written letter from one of my favorite artists - he was apologizing for missing a con because of the birth of his son. Now, I've bought comics from the son too. I've gotten original art from other artists too. I've got a few original pages, the actual pages the artist worked over for hours and some company printed the comic from. It still blows my mind when I look at them. Even commissioned some art from another favorite artist. It's awesome watching the movies now - it's still fun even though I know the stories already.

So, here's the thing though. I've got too many boxes of them. I gotta sell some of them to free up some space in the closets (yeah, multiple). Ha. So, check the inventory or the links in the eBay section for stuff to fill your closet with.
Not all of them though ... I'm still deciding what to do with my Daredevil boxes.

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Play along at home

• July 11: Sold 5!
• July 13: Sold 1!
• July 30: Sold 32!

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